Crafting Humans

From Genesis to Eugenics and Beyond

Marius Turda, Sorin Antohi, Chun-chieh Huang, Jörn Rüsen

• Publisher: V&R Unipress
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9783847100591
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9783847000594
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

'Crafting humans' – and its corollary human enhancement – is a contested topic, both in medical sciences and the humanities. With continuing advances in science and technology, scientists and the general public alike are aware that the basic foundations of the human condition are now at stake. This volume contributes to this growing body of work. It offers insights into some of the reflections and imaginaries that have inspired and legitimated both theoretical and practical programmes for 'crafting' humans, ranging from the religious/spiritualist and the philosophical/cultural to the secular and the scientific/scientistic; from the religious and mystical quest for human perfection to the biopolitical eugenic state of the twentieth century, and current theories of human enhancement. This volume discusses these topics in a synchronized way, as interrelated variants of the most central story in history, that of human perfectibility.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Body
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Frank Ankersmit: Aftermaths and “Foremaths”: History and Humans
• Moshe Idel: Crafting a Golem: the Creation of an Artificial Anthropoid
• Antonis Liakos: The End of History as the Liminality of the Human Condition: From Kojève to Agamben
• Roger Griffin: Bio-nomic Man (and Woman): Fantasies of Anthropological Revolution as a Reaction to Modernity's Nomic Crisis
• Merryn Ekberg: Eugenics: Past, Present, and Future
• Marius Turda: Crafting a Healthy Nation: European Eugenics in Historical Context
• Maria Sophia Quine: Making Italians: Aryanism and Anthropology in Italy during the Risorgimento
• Alison Bashford: Julian Huxley's Transhumanism
• List of Contributors
• Bibliography